BACKGROUND: Patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models are important tools in precision medicine and for the development of targeted therapies to treat cancer patients. This study aimed to evaluate our precision medicine strategy that integrates genomic profiling and preclinical drug-screening platforms, in order to personalize cancer treatments using PDX models. METHODS: We performed array-comparative genomic hybridization, microarray, and targeted next-generation sequencing analyses, in order to determine the oncogenic driver mutations...

Tajikistan's health system has undergone a series of complex changes associated with reforms aimed at the transition to a more sophisticated control mechanism, financing and operation. As in many developing countries, there is an increase in morbidity and mortality from cancer and chronic diseases, including tuberculosis and HIV. Attention is needed by the state for the development of cost-effective palliative care that will be integrated into the existing public health system. A recent palliative care country needs assessment identified the following areas of work that need to be addressed for palliative care to be implemented: • educating and training of health care professionals, • raising public awareness about palliative care, • making essential palliative care medicines available, • developing the necessary regulatory documents for palliative care development, • developing educational curricula and materials, • integrating palliative care into the medical and nursing universities and schools, • Creating models of palliative care services for home and inpatient facilities...

There are approximately 1 million cancer patients in Ukraine and 90,000 cancer deaths a year, 35% of these are diagnosed in the late stage of disease. Ukraine has the most severe HIV epidemic in the region with more than 200,000 persons living with HIV/AIDS and 6000-10000 deaths annually. The morphine consumption rate is among the lowest in the. The first palliative care services were established in 1996 and the number has slowly increased with services provided in inpatient units, home and day care programs and by a range of health care providers...

BACKGROUND: Our previous study demonstrated that an up-regulation of the Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) signaling pathway is involved the mechanism causing the recurrence of triple negative breast cancer. The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of commonly used Chinese medicinal herbs on MDA-MB-231 and HUVEC cells and how they interact with BDNF. METHODS: Human TNBC MDA-MB-231 cells and human endothelial HUVEC cells were used to explore the effect of commonly used Chinese herbal medicines on cancer cells alone, on endothelial cells alone and on cancer cell/endothelial cell interactions; this was done via functional studies, including migration and invasion assays...

PURPOSE: Early palliative care (PC) improves outcomes for outpatients with advanced cancer. Its effect on hospitalized patients with cancer is unknown. Herein, we report on the influence of a novel, fully integrated inpatient medical oncology and PC partnership at a tertiary medical center during its first year of implementation. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective, longitudinal, pre- and postintervention cohort study at Duke University Hospital. Pre- and postintervention cohorts were defined as all patients admitted to the solid tumor inpatient service from September 1, 2009, to June 30, 2010, and September 1, 2011 to June 30, 2012, respectively...

AIM: This article discusses the current use of volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) techniques in clinical practice and reviews the available data from clinical outcome studies in different clinical settings. An overview of available literature about clinical outcomes with VMAT stereotactic/radiosurgical treatment is also reported. MATERIALS AND METHODS: All published manuscripts reporting the use of VMAT in a clinical setting from 2009 to November 2016 were identified...

Oncolytic viruses are quickly moving toward the forefront of modern medicines. The reward for the decades of research invested into developing viral platforms that selectively replicate in and lyse tumour cells whilst sparking anti-cancer adaptive immunity, is presenting in the form of durable therapeutic responses. Whilst it has certainly been a concerted global effort, in this review for the 25th anniversary of the ESGCT we will describe the current status of the major classes of oncolytic viruses, and focus on the contributions made by European researchers...

This self-help book written by cancer expert Patricia Peat and 37 contributors explores strategies that patients and their families can adopt to help regain control of their lives, such as diet, exercise and supportive therapies.

Myeloblastosis-associated virus-2 (MAV-2) is a highly tumorigenic simple avian retrovirus. Chickens infected in ovo with MAV-2 develop tumors in kidneys, lungs, and liver with a short latency of less then 8 weeks. Here we report the results of molecular analyses of MAV-2-induced liver tumors that fall into three classes: hepatic hemangiosarcomas (HHS), intrahepatic cholangiocarcinomas (ICC), and hepatocellular carcinomas (HCC). Comprehensive inverse PCR-based screening of 92 chicken liver tumors revealed that in ca 86 % of these tumors, MAV-2 provirus had integrated into one of four gene loci: HRAS, EGFR, MET, and RON Insertionally mutated genes correlated with tumor type - HRAS was hit in HHSs, MET in ICCs, RON mostly in ICCs and EGFR mostly in HCC...

BACKGROUND: Human cancer cell lines are used in research to study the biology of cancer and to test cancer treatments. Recently there are already some large panels of several hundred human cancer cell lines which are characterized with genomic and pharmacological data. The ability to predict drug responses using these pharmacogenomics data can facilitate the development of precision cancer medicines. Although several methods have been developed to address the drug response prediction, there are many challenges in obtaining accurate prediction...

OBJECTIVE: Through the conduct of an individual-based intervention study, the main purpose of this project was to build and evaluate the required infrastructure that may enable routine practice of precision cancer medicine in the public health services of Norway, including modelling of costs. METHODS: An eligible patient had end-stage metastatic disease from a solid tumour. Metastatic tissue was analysed by DNA sequencing, using a 50-gene panel and a study-generated pipeline for analysis of sequence data, supplemented with fluorescence in situ hybridisation to cover relevant biomarkers...

Sijunzi decoction (SJZD) is a traditional Chinese medicine prescription for the prevention and treatment of colorectal cancer. Our study is aimed to identify the potential therapeutic target of SJZD. Microarray analysis was performed on the patients with colorectal cancer under treatment of SJZD. The mRNA targets of SJZD were predicted by BATMAN-TCM database and were further identified by integrated analysis of expression data from TCGA. The correlation of gene expression and clinical characteristics was analyzed...

BACKGROUND: Advances in technology and the ability to interrogate disease pathogenesis using systems biology approaches are exploding. As exemplified by the substantial progress in the personalized diagnosis and treatment of cancer, the application of systems biology to enable precision medicine in other disciplines such as Nephrology is well underway. Infrastructure that permits the integration of clinical data, patient biospecimens and advanced technologies is required for institutions to contribute to, and benefit from research in molecular disease classification and to devise specific and patient-oriented treatments...

Plants are the integral part of the traditional indigenous healthcare system and are becoming concrete source of new drug discovery, evident by the increasing numbers of modern drugs derived from the phytochemicals. Emblica officinalis Gaertn. or Phyllanthus emblica Linn (family Phyllanthaceae) has been explained extensively and well documented for its therapeutic efficacies in indigenous system of medicine, in India. Every part of this plant possesses high medicinal value but fruits are the most valuable part in folklore and therapeutic uses...

The advent of next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies has advanced our understanding of the intrinsic biology of different gastrointestinal (GI) tumor types. The use of novel, more efficient sequencing platforms has improved turnaround times of sequencing results. This is providing real time opportunities to put precision medicine to the test. A number of early phase clinical trials are testing targeted therapies in unique molecularly characterized subsets of patients (baskets). While basket studies are gaining momentum, treatment failures serve to remind us that shifting from a histology-driven to a histology-agnostic approach is unlikely to be a failure-free strategy for a number of tumor types as recently learnt from vemurafenib failure in BRAF mutated metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC)...

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGIC RELEVANCE: Berberine (BBR) is a naturally occurring alkaloid compound that can be found in Chinese medicinal herbs such as Rhizoma Coptidis and Phellodendri Cortex. These BBR containing herbs are commonly used by Chinese medicine doctors to treat cancers including melanoma. In this study, we explored proteins potentially involved in the anti-melanoma effects of BBR using computational and experimental approaches. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Target proteins of BBR were predicted using the reverse pharmacophore screening, molecular docking and molecular dynamics...

The understanding of the relationship between genetic variation and an individual patient's response to radiation therapy (RT) has gained significant ground over the past several years. Genetic markers have been identified that could ultimately serve as the foundation for predictive models in clinical practice, and that hold the potential to revolutionize the delivery of precision medicine in oncology. Single nucleotide polymorphisms, single genes, and/or gene signatures could ultimately serve as the basis for patient stratification in prospective clinical trials...